Before proceeding with Tip Tuesday, I would like to address some questions on your minds lately:
1. Do we really have Daring Family Freestyle Rap Battles?
Answer: Yes, we do. We just did. Don’t get me wrong, yo. It’s no 8 Mile over here. There’s very little graffiti and people hardly ever get shot. We don’t even wear bandanas or hoodies most of the time. It’s just some good old fashion rhythm and rhyme. We let the lyrics fly when we feel so moved. We do take turns though so it’s more like a Freestyle Rap Cooperative.
2. Am I writing a book?
Answer: Yes. I’m working on a few, actually. My NANOWRIMO project pretty much bit rocks so that’s on the back burner, the way backburner, the burner on our camp stove that we’ve never used out in the garage.
I’m also working on a few other fiction projects but my main project is a non-fiction book written in my blogging style about setting up shop as a new mom, organizing your life and finding ways to be easier on yourself and make life more enjoyable for everyone. I’m pretty excited about that one.
So, the tips, the tips. Today’s Tip Tuesday is brought to you by Susan of Friday Playdate. She has asked for ideas for fun date nights without a babysitter.
I’ve got a couple.
1. Go on a scavenger hunt in your own house. See who can find the most Barbie shoes or puzzle pieces in the course of an hour. Every time you find enough pieces to make a complete puzzle or enough shoes to fill Oprah’s closet, you get a free 10 minute back massage from your spouse.
2. Drive to the best make-out spot in town, your own garage. Who cares about the view anyway, really? Although it’s fun to pretend. He sneaks his arm around your shoulder as you admire the vista of canned chili and disassembled Exersaucers from the backseat. You then re-enact your fateful first kiss. Depending on the size of your house, most baby monitors will pick up a signal from within the car, if you want to invite the kids along on your date (or at least listen to them stuffing their mouths full of marshmallows when they know you’re not looking).
3. Play a board game as a team so there are no hurt feelings when someone loses. For the other player? Just use Loganov. You can borrow him from my family. He is the imaginary player in any game where we don’t have enough players. The human players take turns drawing a card or whatever for Loganov and he aaaaalmost always loses.
What do you do for a fun date night when you don’t have the time, money or planning skills to hire a babysitter?
*Random sidenote. Please go look at my dad’s blog today. He cracks me up and I miss him when he posts stuff like this. OKAY, I miss him all the time.
I love it! Did you see my post day after Valentine’s when I told about parking with the DH?
BTW, went to your dad’s blog, and (sing song voice) I saw your baby picture! How cute are you?
I’m too lazy to type it all again, but I posted about our date night tradition here, if you wanna look.
Dude, your dad is hilarious!
Daring duo rap battles…. sounds a little like something you’d hear on “What’s My Line”. Kinda like a version of the Irish drinking song or Hoedown.
How about sitting side by side on seperate computers, sometimes sending emails to each other. Wait, that’s not date night, that’s everynight.
Lame-O
Heth, we do that too–IM each other from upstairs and downstairs.
I love doing themed date nights at home….We will rent a movie and make a dinner to go along with the theme….you can get really creative…
My mom gave me this idea awhile back:
Feed the kids early, shoo them out of the kitchen while you make a really nice dinner for you and the hubs. Put the kids to bed and enjoy a quiet dinner together without interruptions. Then watch a movie, work on a project together, or whatever else you like to do on an evening alone.
This does require your children to have an actual bedtime before 10:00pm. It helps if they’re somewhat nap deprived by the time bedtime rolls around. They crash pretty quick that way.
Well- not sure if you want without the expense of a babysitter or no babysitter at all. We have some friends that we trade every other Saturday with. We watch their kids one week then they watch ours the next. Works great and it’s cheap!
what Amber said… we have started to do that too.
When we do the “home dates” we usually watch an episode of a tv show on DVD. It only lasts 50 minutes, and that’s about all we are good for nowadays if we want to …ahem… work on strengthening our marital relations as part of our date. Kids make you young again in alot of ways…. and in other ways they make you ooooooold!
Other home dates… we plan and dream and scheme. That’s how we created our front and back yards from scratch with no money to speak of… this is how we hope to finish the basement. We work well together.
We had a group date (us and the kids) a while back. We laided out an old sheet in the living room, ordered take-out and rented a kids movie (but one we wanted to see too) from the store and had an indoor picnic. Fun for all and I got to sit next to my sweetheart (and my two little sweethearts). Doesn’t get much better. Unless of course you know of some good babysitters in our area 🙂
Glad to hear you have projects in the works. I’m smiling! With a built in blog audience you can’t go wrong. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for the post love you left for me, too!
I have never paid a babysitter to watch my kids. We have always lived around family members who are more than happy to watch our kids. So I have no tips. None at all. Aren’t you glad I posted that here?
I like the board game idea… definitely gonna use that one!
Our car doesn’t fit in our garage, but out on the driveway under the stars sounds even better anyway! TFS!
great post! going to give you a call soon. . .my head has not been screwed on straight lately!
We just did this one last week. Rent a movie, get some carbonated beverage, after you put the kids to bed, tear the cushions off the couch and gather all of the extra blankets and pillows in the house and use them to build a “home theater” complete with armrests and footrests, on the floor. Turn out all of the lights and pop tons of popcorn BEFORE you start the movie. Then settle into your seats with the popcorn and sprite, and watch all of the previews, just like you are in the theater. It was so fun, and just like the movie theater, except we got to pause it to make more popcorn. Afterward, we left the home theater blanket mess on the floor to clean up in the morning, because cleaning up does note equal date, according to DH. Whew! sorry so long!
These suggestions are so much better than my usual Give the Kids a Double Dose of Benadryl and Watch a Movie dates! Yay! Thanks, DYM!
And, since Bon already brought it up, I will tell you that last weekend we had a post-kids bedtime date to rekindle the marital fire. And then Charlie started vomiting! Which really took the romance out of the evening.
Instead, we did load after load of laundry and took turns rocking poor sick Charlie. So it was a good mommy and daddy moment, but not the date I was hoping for. As you might imagine.
those are great ideas! Writing is always good. By the way, would that be the burner on the camp stove accidentally left at camp last year? hehe.
Let me be the first to say congratualtions!!
(What do you mean what for?? – go look!)
Loganov. Oh how I love him. He’s been the scapegoat in more games than I can count and when he messes up, no one gets theri feelings hurt.
Love the idea of Loganov!! That is great!
My favortire date night is pretty simple, we have a sort of regular habit of laying in bed and watching The Simpson’s reruns before we go to sleep, so to make it more “datey” I’ll make some of those yummy pepperidge farm cherry turnovers 🙂 Which we get to eat in bed, crumbs and all…depending on our self discpline there might be one left for breakfast (usually not though)
Oh funny funny funny!! congrats on your win!! Can’t wait to hear about the book!! My Band and I Geocache. The mini caches are the funnest and then we hide them. The kids love the driving around. We love the thrill of the hunt!!
Geo-what?
I love “Loganov!” I’m so going to introduce this concept to my imaginary friend-loving girl the next time she begs me to play a board game with her while I’m trying to make dinner/cranky/nursing and sleepy/etc. Thanks for that!